


Start with Orange Juice

by Persiflager



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M, Mpreg, Past Aaron/Andy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 11:56:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9724679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflager/pseuds/Persiflager
Summary: Robert has a plan to win Aaron back. It hits a bump.





	1. Chapter 1

Aaron tried to shut the door but Robert had already got one foot jammed in the way; that wasn't going to do his new Italian loafers any favours but it had taken him six hours and two hundred miles via fucking Ryanair to get to this shitty little flat on the outskirts of Dublin, and he wasn't about to leave until he'd at least persuaded Aaron to talk to him.

"Feel free to put the kettle on," said Robert, following Aaron inside, and he was about to launch into one of the speeches that he’d prepared on the way but then Aaron turned round to face him and Robert stopped still.

He took in the swollen curve of Aaron's stomach, the long-sleeved t-shirt stretched tight across it, the ferocious, guilty, defiant scowl on Aaron’s face.

"You know when I asked if there was something going on?" said Robert, staring at Aaron's stomach again. "You remember, just before you left the village without a fucking word? Just so you know, this qualified."

..

They ended up standing awkwardly in the living room. Aaron had grabbed a hoodie from off the back of the sofa and zipped it up but Robert couldn’t stop staring at where he knew the bump was underneath. You couldn’t see anything if you didn’t know; thinking about it, Robert couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Aaron without a hoodie or jacket covering him up.

“Nice flat,” he said when Aaron proved disinclined to break the silence. This was a lie; it was a horrible flat. Whoever had done the decorating deserved to be shot. But it was either that or discuss the elephant in the room, and Aaron being pregnant was too overwhelming a thought for Robert to handle. He tried to focus on what was in front of him - Aaron in Ireland, Aaron who didn't shoot him after all, Aaron who didn't want anything to do with him - but then he noticed how Aaron stood differently, leaning back to make space, and Robert's brain turned to static.

“It’s my cousin’s,” said Aaron, which figured; Dingles had as many cousins as normal people had friends on Facebook. “Why are you here, Robert?”

"I was worried. You left the village in secret, what was I supposed to think?"

“Not your business.”

“Sure about that, are you?” Robert looked pointedly at Aaron’s stomach. "I mean, I assume it is mine?" Not that Robert really needed to ask; Aaron had always been so, so careful except for that one time in the portacabin, when Robert had been too pleased at the fact they were shagging at all to even think of objecting.

Aaron gave Robert a long look before shrugging, shockingly nonchalant for a pregnant, soon-to-be single father. "Dunno. Probably Andy's, based on the dates."

Everything went very quiet, and then very wobbly, and when Robert next opened his eyes he was flat on his back looking up at the hideous artex ceiling.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," he said.

Aaron's face hove into view, looking amused. "Bit of an over-reaction, don't you think?"

..

The thing was, Robert had never really believed that Aaron had shot him. Oh, he could well believe that Aaron wanted him dead - plenty of people did who he’d hurt much less than Aaron - and it wasn’t as if he didn’t know what it was like to pull a gun on someone he loved. On paper, it made perfect sense, and that was without people knowing what he’d done at that lodge.

But it didn’t sit right. Robert knew Aaron, better than anyone else did, and he hadn’t seen this coming. That bothered him. He lay awake at night in the hospital going over everything he knew of Aaron, trying to make it make sense, and he’d just about come to terms with the fact that maybe he’d been wrong about Aaron all along when he got Ashley’s message.

Andy, now - Andy was a different story. Robert knew the truth of that the moment he heard it.

..

“I didn’t have time for breakfast,” said Robert when he’d managed to sit up. “My brother. You’re not serious.”

Aaron had the gall to look more amused than ever.

“He’s straight.”

“So are you, according to you.”

“Yes, but he actually is.”

“Right, and what does that make you?”

“Bisexual, obviously!” Robert ignored the look of surprise on Aaron’s face - had Aaron really not figured that one out by now? - and ploughed on. “Seriously, you couldn’t have found anyone else for a rebound shag? No-one at that sodding bar? Finn would have been up for another go, you’d have made his month.”

“Not everything’s about you, Robert.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

Aaron rolled his eyes and walked off to the little kitchen area. A moment later Robert heard the sound of a kettle being filled and switched on, which was a good sign, from Aaron; even if it had more to do with Robert's recent fainting spell than any desire on Aaron's part to talk, it was an opportunity, and Robert was good at making the most of opportunities.

He could have Andy killed, of course; that was fairly straightforward from a logistical point of view, even if it would make for a certain amount of unpleasantness, family-wise. But a moment's consideration was enough to rule that out as unnecessary; Aaron clearly didn't want anything more to do with Andy than he did with Robert, or he would have told him. Anyway, the surprise pregnancy and even more surprise brother-fucking were essentially just distractions from the reason Robert was in Ireland in the first place, which was to declare his feelings, persuade Aaron that a romantic relationship between them wouldn't be a complete and utter train-wreck, and, ideally, celebrate said persuasion in a truly epic shag.

"You what," said Aaron, looking utterly horrified, when Robert explained this.

"I love you," said Robert.

"Oh my god," said Aaron, and he sat down so hard that tea slopped over the side of his mug and all over the ugly brown corduroy sofa.

..

Once he’d cleared up the whole ‘attempted murder’ business, Robert had thought he might ask Aaron out for a drink. Nothing major - just a fresh start, to see if they could put the past behind them and make a real go of it now that neither of them was in prison or a coma or married. He’d thought about it a lot, actually, while he was waiting for Aaron to be released - about how nice it would be not having to sneak around, being able to go out with Aaron in public, being able to spend the night without having to come up with increasingly elaborate excuses. Aaron’s family would disapprove, obviously, but that had never stopped Aaron before, and Vic would stand up for him. Granted, what Aaron had said in court hadn’t been especially promising, but that had been a stressful situation and he would have calmed down by the time he got out, and anyway if Robert was willing to forgive Aaron wrecking his marriage then surely they could both just let bygones be bygones?

Aaron, as it turned out, had seen things differently.

..

“We could start with a drink,” said Robert. “No pressure, just see how we go.”

“I’m pregnant, you prat.”

“Orange juice, then.”

Aaron shook his head and sat back frowning at what was left of his tea.

To pass the time, Robert tried figuring out the odds. At the moment he wouldn’t give himself more than 60% chance of success, but that went up with every minute Aaron didn’t kick him out because Robert held nearly every card and he knew all of Aaron’s tells and the biggest one of all was that if he didn’t leave then he wanted to be persuaded, and wanting it was half the battle. Aaron only had one card to play, although admittedly it was an ace; the uncomfortable truth was that for all Aaron had put up with in the past, there was only one of them capable of walking away and it wasn’t Robert.

“Last time we spoke,” said Aaron eventually, “I told you to go fuck yourself.”

“I’ve heard worse.”

“Said worse, and all.”

“Yes, well.” Robert drank some of his tea - it was far too sweet. “Look, I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t mean it.”

“Right,” said Aaron, as if he didn’t give a toss one way or another. "How’d you find me?”

Embarrassingly, it had taken Robert nearly a week to work out that Aaron had gone. At first he’d assumed that Aaron was avoiding him, which had been par for the course since Aaron had got out of prison, and given how hostile Aaron had been each time Robert had tried to strike up a conversation he hadn’t been inclined to push things. It was only when Brenda had repeated a conversation that she’d heard between Belle and Sam that Robert had realised the truth - that Aaron had left the village (more specifically Robert) for good, and that that fucking family were all in on it.

"Vic got your address off Adam’s phone. Don’t worry, he didn’t tell her anything, but he’s crap at remembering to lock it.” Victoria had gone all soft around the eyes when Robert had asked for her help; she’d thought it was romantic, Robert rushing off to find Aaron and persuade him to come home. Robert thought that anyone looking at him and Aaron and seeing a romance was wearing glasses so heavily rose-tinted as to be opaque, but under the circumstances he hadn’t stopped to argue. “Does she know, by the way? About your bun in the oven.”

“No,” said Aaron, then he pulled a face. “Probably does by now, though. You going mental and dashing over here’s probably round half the village by now.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, looked at it, swore, then dropped it on the coffee table. “Fucking hell.”

Robert’s phone had a similar stack of texts and missed calls. He ignored them, along with the comment about going mental because, looked at objectively, it wasn’t completely without truth. “So, what’s next? Are you planning to stay here forever?”

Aaron pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, I just - needed to get my head straight.”

“And have you?” asked Robert with what he considered to be commendable restraint. He didn’t even know what Aaron with his head straight would look like; the closest he could imagine was ‘not likely to kick off in the next five minutes’, and Aaron hadn’t managed that in Robert’s presence for months.

“Close as I’m going to get,” said Aaron. “Look, I-”

The doorbell rang. Aaron sighed and started pushing himself up off the sofa.

“I’ll get it,” said Robert, leaping to his feet. “Let me make myself useful.”

Robert opened the door to find Andy standing there, looking as surprised as Robert felt. They stared at each other for a moment and then Robert punched him in the face, which honestly, under the circumstances, seemed like the only reasonable course of action.

Disappointingly, Andy didn’t fall over; he just stood there looking gormless with one hand clasped to his cheek until Aaron came out.

"Nice," said Aaron. “So, this is you being useful, is it?”

“Look, I-”

“Just go home, Robert.”

"Now, be reasonable," said Robert in a reasonable voice, spreading his hands. His knuckles stung. "That's - you're carrying my kid, or Andy's kid, so either way I think I have a right to be involved."

"No, ta," said Aaron mildly. He was still holding his mug but the fingers of his free hand curled into a fist and Robert was interested to notice that being visibly pregnant in no way made Aaron seem any less physically intimidating. "I've seen what you're like with family, no way do I want to get messed up in that." He looked at Andy. "Alright?"

"Alright," said Andy. “Can I have a word?”

Aaron looked at Robert before nodding. “Sure.” He turned and went back inside. Andy followed him and, as nobody shut the door in his face, so did Robert.

..

Robert lurked nearby while Aaron and Andy were speaking in the kitchen but their voices were too low for him to catch more than the odd word. He did hear his name, which wasn’t that surprising; probably nothing good.

"So," said Robert after Andy had come out and joined him in the living room, because Aaron had gone to the loo and left them on their own and Robert really wasn't capable of sitting in companionable silence with his twat of a brother who had apparently knocked up the love of Robert's life. "Having me shot wasn't enough for you? You had to go after Aaron as well? Or was this just your latest sad attempt at coping with the failure you've made of your life? Don't get me wrong, a gay fling beats trying to drive yourself into the quarry, but under the circumstances you'll forgive me if I don't throw you a coming-out party."

"It wasn't like that," said Andy. "We were drunk."

"Lovely."

"I like Aaron."

" _Obviously_. And what about your existing children? You won’t be seeing much of Jack and Sarah if you’re shacked up over here with Aaron. Or were you planning to commute? Weeks in Emmerdale, weekends in Dublin - you’d certainly rack up the frequent flyer miles, I’ll give you that.”

“I only came over yesterday. Debbie needed a car bringing over and no-one else could do it. I didn’t know about any of this. ” Andy hesitated. “Look, Robert-”

He stopped as Aaron wandered back in, phone in hand. “I’ve texted my mum,” he said, to neither of them in particular. “Going to drive back today. Get the afternoon ferry. You’re welcome to a lift, if you want.”

“You’re coming back for good, then?” asked Robert, aiming for casual and missing by a mile.

Aaron raised one shoulder and dropped it again, which from Aaron could mean anything from 'I don't know' to 'I'm not telling you because I'm not speaking to you, you twat'. “Not because of you,” he added. “I was going to come back this week anyway.”

But it wasn't a punch in the face, so that was nice. Robert could work with not being punched in the face.


	2. Chapter 2

Stuck in the cramped backseat of Aaron's car, Robert had to spend the entire journey to the ferry listening to Andy asking endless knowledgeable questions about Aaron's pregnancy and health as if this was a wanted, planned-for, not at all inconvenient child instead of the unfortunate outcome of a drunken fumble between two idiots who should have known better.

He finally got to talk to Aaron alone on the ferry, when Andy was busy being sick in one of the loos.

"So, will it be a church do or registry office?" asked Robert as he sat down next to Aaron and passed him a large cardboard cup of tea. "I'm sure Vic will be happy to do the catering either way."

Aaron squinted at him a bit but took the tea anyway. "It's not like that," he said, wrapping his hands around the cup for warmth. "We're mates. Andy's a good bloke."

It was infuriating, this mass delusion that Andy was, at heart, despite all he'd done, a 'good bloke', while Robert could do nothing but charitable works for a year and would still be the fuck-up. Andy was about as far from a good bloke as it got, and Robert would have told Aaron all about the shooting if it wasn't for the fact that that would have ended in Aaron punching Andy in front of lots of witnesses, and it'd make it that much harder to Robert to win him back if Aaron was locked up.

"I thought you didn't want kids.”

"I said I didn't want you to get me pregnant," said Aaron. "There's a difference."

"It's definitely his, then?" asked Robert, and, because he couldn't help himself, "Not one of your mates down in London?"

The snippy tone rolled off Aaron, leaving him unruffled. It was one of Aaron's more annoying qualities - he kicked off all the time for little or no reason, but when Robert tried his hardest to rile him it didn't work.

"Why do you even care, Robert? It's not like you want kids, especially not with me."

Aaron didn't even sound upset, just curious, and there was so much wrongness in his words that it took Robert a moment to work out where to start.

"Firstly, unless it's twins and you just haven't mentioned it, we're just talking 'kid' singular," he said, starting with the least complicated question. He attempted a grin but didn't get a response so he kept going. "Secondly, I never said I didn't want kids." What he had said, more than once, was how grateful he was that Chrissie didn't want another one, and that that pregnancy scare with his ex had been a false alarm, which, taken together with a general lack of interest on his part, he could see might lead Aaron to draw that conclusion, but that still didn't make it a fact.

Aaron didn't look particularly convinced.

Robert sallied on. "Why not you? You'd be great at it, better than half the parents in the village. And-" the words caught on his tongue for a moment but he forced them out, "I care, of course I care, why do you think I came all the way to fucking Ireland?"

"Right," said Aaron, looking a little stunned.

"I don't care about Andy, just - please don't leave again."

Aaron drew in a breath and said, "Robert," helplessly, and then he didn't manage to say anything else because a massive, idiot-shaped shadow loomed over the two of them and they both looked up to see a pale-faced Andy holding several packets of crisps.

"I didn't know what you fancied, so I got a few.”

"Oh, cheers," said Aaron, all normal again, taking the salt-and-vinegar.

Andy waved the remaining bags in Robert's direction as if a few snacks would make up for fucking the only person Robert had ever truly loved, and Robert gave very serious thought to pushing him over the rails and into the Irish Sea to drown.

..

They dropped Andy off at his house so that he could do … something to do with his kids, Robert really didn’t care, then drove straight to the Woolpack. It was dark but the pub was well-lit and noisy - by the sounds of it either a fight or a party was going on, probably both if there were Dingles involved.

Aaron turned off the engine, climbed out a little clumsily, and stood in the car park just looking at the door to the pub. His breath made little clouds in the cold air.

"I could come in with you if you like," offered Robert, jamming his hands in his pockets.

"Are you having a laugh?" said Aaron. "That'd make things about a million times worse, thanks. My mum would kill you for a start."

"Or Cain."

"True," said Aaron, looking decidedly cheered-up by the prospect. He swung the boot open and grabbed his duffel bag and Robert couldn’t help reaching for it.

“Here, let me-”

“I can manage.”

“I know,” said Robert, suddenly very, very aware of how close they were standing. “I just want to help.”

“Not like you,” said Aaron, grinning despite the sting in his words and not moving away. Whoever said that the sea was changeable was wrong, the sea had got nothing on Aaron. Rollercoasters had nothing on Aaron, whose moods could flip faster than Robert could blink, too fast for Robert to track on any level except instinct, and his instincts now were telling him that he was in with a chance.

“I missed you,” said Robert, keeping his voice low.

“Did you.” Aaron tilted his head on one side, considering. “You really want to be helpful?”

“Anything. Aaron, I-”

Aaron kissed him. With warm breath against Robert’s face and a cold hand around the back of Robert’s neck Aaron kissed him hard, right there in the car park where anyone could see if they were daft enough to come outside on a freezing December night, and Robert’s entire body lit up like the fucking Regent Street lights.

“Come upstairs,” said Aaron, hot against his mouth. “Come upstairs with me.”

“Oh, well, if you insist,” said Robert.

..

They made it inside and up the stairs in record time, Aaron shushing Robert all the way because now Aaron was the one who didn’t want anyone to know. It felt good not caring, not having that weight on his shoulders; Robert felt like making a racket so that everyone could hear what they were up to, and he wondered if Aaron had ever felt like that, back in the day. He didn’t think so, somehow; Aaron was private in a way Robert had never been. Robert had relied on that for a long time.

“Come here,” said Aaron, shutting the door behind them and dropping his bag on the floor in one movement.

Robert complied. “You know,” he said once his mouth was his own again, as Aaron busied himself yanking off Robert’s jacket, shirt, and started work on his belt buckle, “I really did miss you.”

“Okay,” said Aaron, distracted, as he stripped. Baby bump notwithstanding, he was still as fit as ever - big arms, broad shoulders, strong thighs. Robert had thought about him often, had tried to reconstruct him from scattered memories and the few pictures Aaron had let him take, but it hadn’t come close to reality.

“Look,” said Robert when Aaron was starkers and rummaging around in his bedside table drawer, “I get that you’re not in the mood for a deep and involved chat about our feelings, but I just wanted to-”

“Are you joining me or what?” said Aaron, turning around, and Robert shut up.

Aaron’s mouth was softer than his words, and he kissed Robert as he man-handled him onto the bed. Robert let himself be arranged; Aaron clearly had a goal and Robert was absolutely, 100% on board with that. He did take the opportunity to kiss whichever parts of Aaron came within reach - his wrist, his shoulder, his neck, his jaw, until Aaron was shivering and swearing and distracted and-

“Ah,” said Aaron as he eased himself down onto Robert’s cock. “Ah, fuck.”

Robert breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, and clenched his fingers on Aaron’s hips.

“If you come now, Robert, I swear to god I’ll do you myself.”

“You’re really tight,” said Robert by way of apology. “Give me a minute.”

Aaron, being Aaron, couldn’t do what he was told and carried on shifting and squirming on Robert’s cock while Robert gasped and breathed and tried to think unsexy thoughts, which was basically impossible with Aaron’s presence swamping his senses. There was nothing that didn’t turn him on about Aaron, never had been. He tried focussing on the swell of Aaron’s stomach, the one change in the body he’d known so well - it was surprisingly firm and looked even larger now that Aaron was naked, a strange contrast to the flat, muscled plane Robert had always loved. It didn’t do the trick.

“Ah, shit,” said Aaron, falling forward and bracing himself on Robert’s chest.

Robert slowed. “Should I-”

“Don’t you dare stop,” said Aaron, digging his fingernails in. “Don’t you fucking dare, Robert.”

“Roger that.” Robert fucked up into Aaron as hard as he could while he watched Aaron fall apart on top of him, and his last thought before he came was to congratulate himself on a day gone almost entirely according to plan.

..

 

Afterwards, Robert lounged on the bed and did his best to savour the afterglow while Aaron clomped around getting dressed. He liked feeling the sweat drying on his skin, he liked the way Aaron kept sneaking glances - he even liked the sticky pool of jizz on his stomach, though it was objectively disgusting, because it was tangible proof of what had just happened and Aaron couldn’t just erase it the way he seemed to be trying to erase his own nakedness.

“There’s no rush, you know,” said Robert, luxuriating in a full-body stretch. “You could always come back to bed.” He could feel Aaron’s eyes on him and it made his cock twitch with anticipation. God, how he’d missed sex - sex with Aaron, sex in general. Sex with Aaron was the best, no competition there, which had annoyingly spoiled him for other people - when you’re used to driving an Audi, it’s hard to get excited about a Fiat Punto. Still, after four months without he’d have probably settled for a Skoda, if he hadn’t been busy with getting shot, being in a coma, recovering from said coma and finding out who shot him in the first place, and if he hadn’t been handicapped by being hated by pretty much everyone in the village apart from his sister.

A box of tissues landed on the bed beside him. Robert took the hint and started cleaning himself up.

“So, what now?” asked Robert as he pulled on his pants. Aaron was standing fully dressed at the edge of the room watching him and frowning, which could have meant pretty much anything. Robert considered himself something of an expert on Aaron but even he needed something to go on.

“What do you mean, ‘what now?’? Nothing now. I’m going to have a kid, and you’re going to go off and do … whatever it is you do these days.”

“Right. And this was-”

“Sex, Robert. It was just a shag. You should know how that works by now.”

“Right.” Robert did know how that worked, Robert knew very fucking well indeed. He knew that he’d told Aaron ‘this is just sex, it doesn’t mean anything’ a thousand times, and every single one had been a lie. And Robert was a much better liar than Aaron. “And what about the scrapyard?” asked Robert as he located his trousers. “Just going to carry on working there, are you? Think you’ll be able to lift scrap all day when you’re nine months pregnant?”

“Not your concern.”

“Well, it is my concern if I’m going to be working there too.”

“You what,” said Aaron.

Robert zipped himself up. “I’m going to work at the scrapyard. Cover for you while you’re pregnant.” Getting no response other than a disbelieving stare, Robert added, “Don’t thank me or anything.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Try and stop me. I am part-owner, you know. And I bet Adam would be glad of the extra hand, especially after you ditched him this week.”

Aaron narrowed his eyes at Robert. “Why?”

“Again, part-owner. And - I want to help,” said Robert as he buttoned up his shirt, and he was surprised as he said it to find that it was true. “You don’t have to do this on your own.”

Aaron carried on squinting at Robert, as if he’d be able find the truth in Robert’s face if he just looked hard enough. Robert wished him luck - he’d looked at himself often enough in the mirror, he was fairly certain there wasn’t any truth to be found there.

“You really mean that,” said Aaron at last.

Robert concentrated on putting his socks back on. Beside him, the bed dipped.

“What do you want, Robert?”

Aaron’s eyes were soft and very, very blue. The last time Robert had seen Aaron’s face this open, he’d hurt him. He’d done that a lot. “I told you,” said Robert. “I want to buy you a drink. Downstairs. Orange juice, whatever - just have a drink with me.”

“That’s all, is it?”

“No. But it’s where I want to start.”

“Right,” said Aaron, and he bit his lower lip. “The thing is-”

“If you mention Andy then I’ll kill you both, I’m sorry, but-”

“Shut up for a minute, will you?” Aaron looking away, cracked his knuckles, and whooshed out a big breath. “OK. The thing is, it’s yours. The baby, I mean. Not Andy’s.”

The world went very quiet. “Right.”

“Don’t make a big thing out of it,” said Aaron quickly. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Pretty sure you’re wrong there,” said Robert. His mouth seemed to be operating on automatic, which was lucky. He suddenly felt glad to be sitting down. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why are you telling me now? Does Andy know?”

Aaron shrugged unconvincingly. “You would have figured it out eventually - even you can count to nine. And yeah, Andy worked it out.” He looked at Robert. “Don’t be like that, he said I should tell you.”

Robert didn’t know what he was being like. He didn’t know what his face was doing. He wasn’t quite sure what to do - the first two things that leaped to mind were to propose to Aaron and punch him, neither of which seemed like it would improve the situation.

“Are you alright?” said Aaron. “You look a bit-”

Robert never got a chance to find out what he looked like because at that point the door swung open and Chas marched into the room like a one-woman invading army.

“Aaron, is that you, why haven’t you been answering your-” She stopped. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”

“Alright?” said Robert.

“Not now, mum,” said Aaron, getting up and trying to usher her out.

“ _Him_? Oh no, over my dead body-”

“ _Mum_ , I said _not now_ -”

“I take it she knows, then?” asked Robert idly.

“You told him?!” yelled Chas.

Aaron glared at Robert. “Thanks, mate,” he said, and went back to arguing with Chas.

Chas Dingle, Robert’s future mother-in-law. Robert let the row wash over him as he thought about that. Him, father to a Dingle child. Would it be feral like the rest of them? Would it take after him or Aaron, looks-wise? Either would be fine, they were both fit. Vic would be made-up, she loved being an auntie. Andy would probably be all smug and superior, having raised two already, but Robert would clearly be a much better dad than Andy could ever hope to be.

There was a temporary pause in the yelling.

“So, drink?” said Robert. “I’ll even buy you one,” he said, nodding to Chas, “seeing as we’re going to be family.”

It was the first time Robert had ever seen Chas Dingle speechless.

“Throw in a packet of crisps and you’re on,” said Aaron at last.

“You can have two, seeing as you’re in the family way,” said Robert, holding the door.

Aaron grinned as he slid past. “Big spender.”

_Three out of three_ , thought Robert. _You jammy git. Don’t fuck this up._

“Now, about baby names…”


End file.
